


For What It's Worth

by monimala



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Ficlet, Multi, POV Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 11:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5964835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monimala/pseuds/monimala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in between <i>Captain America: Winter Soldier</i> and <i>Captain America: Civil War</i>.</p>
<p>Bucky needs both. Gentle and harsh. Forgiveness and sin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For What It's Worth

Steve is innocent. Pure. Each pale eyelash is like a delicate strand of gold. His skin is perfect, unblemished, unscarred. He is everything the Soldier isn't. _Bucky_ , the soft voice in his head — so soft, so insistent — reminds. _You're Bucky. Not him. Not the Winter Soldier._ And he nods even though no one can see it. His simple acknowledgement of what his reality is now. He's Bucky. Not the killer. Not that creature. He is Steve Rogers' friend. Beyond that, he's not entirely sure. He's a man-shaped thing with a cybernetic arm and gaping holes in his memory. But for Steve that is good enough, and Bucky has to think that's worth everything.

The sheets are tangled around Steve's hips. He's golden there, too. Perpetually suntanned everywhere that Bucky is sickly and white from skulking in shadows. He can't seem to look his fill. As if every inch of Captain America is a line on a map to his past, his present and his future. Maybe one day he'll find his way home. Maybe he already has.

“James.” Natasha's mouth presses against his bent neck. Her fingers slide into his hair and clutch and tug. “It's okay.” Her words are as kind as her touch is cruel. Because she knows he needs both. Gentle and harsh. Forgiveness and sin. Both Steve and her. “We're here,” she says, as she slips into the bed behind him and aligns her breasts with his back. Her hips cradle his. Her kiss stings his mouth as she forces his head to turn. “We're not going anywhere,” she whispers, before she takes his tongue.

Her scarlet hair spills across his cheek. He breathes in smoke and gunpowder. And he lets her push him down to his mattress, next to their sleeping leader, their hero and their god. Steve will awaken partway through, Bucky knows, and balance Natasha's scratches with caresses and her curses with blessings. He no longer touches Bucky with violence...as if he can't bear to remember that they ever fought. The Black Widow has no such delusions.

She pins his wrists above his head, digs her knees into his thighs, rides him hard, until he recalls all the names he's ever called her. _Widow. Natalia. Romanova. Tasha_. For every bone of hers he broke on the training mat, she exacts a bruise. For every time he held a gun on her, she slams down on his cock.

If Steve is innocence, then Natasha is guilt. Silver and heavy and chain-like. It ties them together, the Red Room and everything they did. But here in _this_ room, in this darkness, they're each a little bit more free. Each a little bit more whole. Steve makes love, Natasha fucks, and Bucky comes...back to himself, piece by piece.


End file.
